Importance of Lucky’s Speech in “Waiting for Godot”

Samuel Beckett’s remarkable piece of writing “Waiting for Godot” presents several interpretations regarding human life, existence, alienation and many many more. The play, published in 1952, is subtitled as “a tragicomedy in two acts”, means that this play has just two acts and has black humor. Themes of absurdity, alienation, effects of World War are significant. As the lack of communication between characters and absurdity of language, similarly, there’s a detailed speech of one of the character named, Lucky is highly symbolic.

Read About: Modernism and Post-Modernism Characteristics

It seems most unusual and without any punctuation (Linguistically). The speech is given near the middle of the play and is apparently expression of absurd arabesque thoughts. Lucky’s speech is initiated when Viladimir requests Pozzo to make Lucky think. When Lucky is given hat, this enables his thinking and he starts to speak fluently. Pozzo orders him as, “Think!” and Lucky does so. The form of the speech is a religious statement which starts from, “Given the existence… of a personal God,” through repetition of certain sounds and meaningless phrases, it seemed that God is ridiculed as much as it is criticized. The repetition of “for reasons unknown” emphasizes that this God seems to be lost in a maze or irrelevance, absurdity and coherence.

TAKE A READING BREAK AND WATCH!

Read About: Critical Literary Theory Books

For Lucky, God is his foundation, pictured as kind of grandfather that looks over his grandchildren. Lucky tries to deliver a perception into the human situation that man has been abandoned God but God still has compassion for him. The speech is concluded with the word “unfinished” which signifies the incomplete dwindling process of human beings. The deterioration of diminishing of men is also shown in Lucky’s life.

Download full text of the play: Waiting for Godot full text